-- Book magic

Book magic

Books have been around for ages. Pretty much as far back as people have been communicating with one another. Even before the printing press was invented, humans have found a way to share their thoughts by scratching on stone or painting on papyrus. Considering this, and the fact that there are so many of them, we often forget just how astonishing books actually are. They’re powerful in a way that is entirely unique.

OK, I know I’m starting to sound a little unhinged, here, but bear with me. Just think about this: all books, every single one, contains just 26 little letters rearranged in multiple different ways, but every time this happens, entirely new worlds are created. In the simple act of turning a page, a reader can be anyone, anywhere.

You can navigate through strange cities, fall in love a thousand times, get lost in fetid jungles, or hike to the top of mountains where the air is too thin to breathe. I’m constantly thrilled by the wonder of this, and, as a writer myself, by the astonishing fact that something that I thought up inside my crazy little head can actually become an environment for someone else, someone I’ve never met, possibly reading the book from a comfy armchair on the other side of the world, to wander through.

Readers and writers, therefore, are connected. Without ever needing to meet, a bond is formed the moment that book is picked up, opened and read. Fiction, it seems to me, creates the strangest sort of love affair, one of the best kinds there is: a sharing of hearts and hopes that is unaffected by the boundaries of time and space, economics, politics or gender.

I write a story about a girl in an isolated, almost magical garden in the hidden corner of a valley in Africa, and you can join in her journey as she grows up, falls in love for the first time, discovers her sexuality and her own hidden strengths. If that’s not magic, I’m not sure what is…